Bells Beach was arguably one of the most iconic surf venues in the world. Factually speaking, it was the oldest on the championship tour that was still being utilized. The trophy - unsurprisingly a giant bell that as a winner you were obligated to ring with extreme gusto - was mounted with a gold plaque that had every winner's name engraved...all the way back to 1964.

Bells Beach was also where the higher powers of the WSL determined quarter-season cuts were made - a new addition to the tour this year that effectively severed the top 20 rankings in half so that only the top 10 advanced through to the final quarter of the season. I was currently 6th, but everyone in the top 10 was competing here, and it was all far too close to take risks. One bad heat and I could have found myself tumbling into the water, out of the top 10, and out of competition.

I might have finally found myself in a somewhat comfortable place with everyone in my life, but everyone didn't include surfing or my relationship with it, and the leaderboard posted high up against the walls of the main event tent for everyone to see was a glaring reminder of that. The Sav I was outside of surfing was not on speaking terms with former two-time surfing world champion Savannah Allen. Two completely different individuals, and I had to find a way to make them co-exist.

In keeping with Bells Beach traditions, every morning before heats began, Hells Bells by AC/DC would ring out across the beach as we all warmed up and watched the tide slowly slink out into the rising sun on the horizon. Malia and I had already gone through my strategy for the morning, since I had the unfortunate luck to not only draw the first heat of the day, but against native Australian hometown favorite and former world champion Courtney Wright, along with up and coming rookie Dana Bayer - also Australian. Home court advantage wasn't really a thing in surfing the way it could be in other sports, but crowds always cheered on the locals, and they'd typically seen more waves here than the rest of us.

There was a level of seriousness here that wasn't typically found in surfing events (barring the tour finals), and the tense silence had lingered since we'd all arrived that morning to warm up.

I was in the middle of a few calf stretches when the sound of someone calling my name soared over the Red Hot Chili Peppers song I had cranked up in my headphones.

"Sav! Sav!"

Brit Colona eagerly waved her free hand at me while keeping her hot pink board tucked under her other arm. The literal blaring yellow siren of her event jersey was hard to miss as she skipped along the rocky low-tide shore over to me. Most surfers wore some variation of either white, black, or red jerseys with their name and number on it during events depending on their ranking, but only the current world #1 got the yellow jersey.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carissa Keli'i perched up on the rocky cliffside above the beach, scowling as she looked down at us.

Thankfully, Costa Rican native Brit was nothing like Carissa. She was young and probably better than everyone, but you wouldn't know it from the way she carried herself. Brit had owned the yellow shirt for a few events now, artfully swiping it away from Carissa after a win in Portugal. I hadn't worn the yellow jersey in years, and I found myself frowning in spite of myself as Brit got closer.

"It's nice to see you," she said as she scooped me into a one-armed hug. "Good luck out there this morning, yeah?"

"Oh, uh...thanks," I forced a quick smile, her beaming positivity catching me off guard. "You too."

She flashed me another smile before skipping away across the slippery rocks like she'd done it a thousand times before. I slid my headphones back on and shuffled through my warmup playlist while I stretched, feeling not only Carissa's eyes still on me but other surfers with early heats that had begun to congregate in the staging area. Courtney stood on the other edge of the ramp leading down from the event suite to the beach, talking to her coach.

Being the first heat of the day was not generally ideal, since you were more or less the guinea pigs for the swell. If the sets were small, inconsistent, or otherwise just dead, the judges would only be able to adjust the gauge of their scoring after seeing us duke it out for shitty waves. Wave selection in a heat was always important, since you never know when your last ride of the heat will be, but at a place like Bells with the stakes sky high, heat selection was probably the most important thing for me here. No fucking pressure or anything.

Courtney, Dana and I all took different routes down the beach and across the rocky shore into the water, where I instantly felt the tug of the tide as it continued to pull out towards the ocean. As we made it out the back and into the lineup, the water stilled, and it felt like everyone took a collective inhale as the horn blared from the beach, signaling the official start of the heat. Ahead on the horizon, the ocean looked like glass.

A few minutes in, a set began to roll through, and at the start of a heat there was no priority positioning given, so it was a true paddle battle to catch the first wave. Water sprayed up in every direction as we all took a dive at the wave, but Courtney was in a better position on the inside of the wave and forced me over the lip to get out of her way as she dropped down into it. The set fizzled behind that one good wave, and suddenly I found myself sloshing out alone in open water as Courtney dropped in a 7.80 to start the heat.

I gripped the edges of my board with white knuckles. This was exactly what I didn't want to happen - falling behind a set and now having to play catch up with Courntey's score. I had priority positioning now since Courtney caught the first wave, but by the time she'd paddled back into the lineup, another few minutes had gone by, and I still hadn't caught a wave. I laid out onto my board and dipped my body down into the water quickly to clear my head.

Patience was a virtue in most aspects of life, but in surfing, patience was truly a skill - being able to keep your composure in the line-up and wait, wait, wait, then changing gears instantaneously when a wave set comes through and performing in the moment. There was a unique type of silence when you were out there, and more often than not, it gave agency to thoughts swirling around in your head to get loud. You weren't just fighting with the other surfers in your heat - you were fighting with yourself too.

A set began to swell, and as Dana dove forward for the first wave, I caught another wave swelling behind it and opted for that one instead. I'd sat quiet for long enough, and I knew if I didn't put something on the scoreboard now, I might not get another opportunity to.

I sucked in a breath and dropped down into the wave, immediately regretting my wave selection as I was met with a bumpy face with swirls of whitewater that rattled my board underneath me and made it even more difficult to keep my footing. I grit my teeth and tried to carve out a few turns, but I couldn't connect any of them, taking pauses as I tried to kick up more speed and more momentum on the face of the wave. The wave faded underneath me, and I slumped into the water before climbing back onto my board. I scored a 4.5.

Courtney was back to having priority, and she used it to keep me and Dana off of another decent wave - meaning if she went for a wave and we interfered with her, we'd be docked points. The best surfers utilized priority sometimes just to keep other surfers from catching a good wave and prevent a potential high score. It was a form of pettiness I was too fond of in my prime.

Time ticked along as we sat in the water, and I found myself slowly drifting away from Courtney and Dana. I had priority, but if I didn't get a decent set right here, I wasn't sure I could squeak out a backup score that would put me ahead of Dana. With only 10 minutes left, Courtney was safe no matter what.

We all cast wary glances at each other as another set began to swell in the distance, and I used my priority positioning to claim the wave, forcing the other two to back off. This set was a lot smoother than the previous as I carved a few turns off the top of the wave, attempting to throw myself back into a layback hack. Salty ocean water kicked up into my face, and before I lost my footing on my board again, I snapped myself back upright before the wave detonated underneath me. I barely escaped the impact zone as whitewater went up into the air, exploding like fireworks.

When I broke the surface, I was greeted with the sound of the horn blaring at the beach, signaling the end of the heat. And the end of my surfing existence, probably.

After the round of opening heats (which was the only heat of an event that featured 3 surfers instead of the usual 2), surfers who came last in their heat were dropped into the elimination round, where the losers would fight it out to earn a place back in the event. If you lost in your elimination round, you were...well, eliminated. Game over. No lives left. 

I met Malia up on the ramp as security walked me through the beach and up to the main event tent. She gently took my forearm as water still dripped off of my jersey, decorating the wooden ramp with salt water polka dots. 

When we were finally alone in my section of the Rip Curl tent, Malia whipped off her sunglasses and stared me down with a heated gaze that rivaled the sun.

"Explanation," she said as she folded her arms over her hoodie. "Now."

"I don't know," I groaned as I wrung salt water out of my hair. Malia rolled her eyes, and I snapped up straight. "Malia, I don't fucking know, okay? I misread a few waves, the sets sucked, I don't know what to tell you."

"Well, I know what to tell you," she replied. "You're too fucking timid. You didn't commit to a single maneuver, and the judges noticed. That's why your turns were scored low. They want to see commitment, not conservativeness. The direction of your nose wasn't-"

Something flared up in me, and while I knew I should have been mad with myself, it came out spraying like hot cinders after you poke a fire to rekindle it. I wanted to burn up into the atmosphere.

"I know how to carve a fucking turn," I snapped. "Maybe I'm just not as good as everyone expects me to be. Maybe everyone needs to just stop-"

"Don't." Malia put her hands down on my shoulders. "Don't be like this. I know you're nervous about the cut, I know you're feeling the pressure, but...this isn't you."

I scoffed and shook myself away from her. "Maybe it is."

TWO-TIME WORLD CHAMPION SAVANNAH ALLEN RISKS SEASON ELIMINATION WITH POOR START AT BELLS BEACH

With the addition of the quarter-season cuts in this year's Championship Tour, several high-profile surfers find themselves in the danger zone before the tour heads to G-Land - most notably, former two-time world champion Savannah Allen, who was dropped into the elimination round at Bells Beach after a less than ideal opening heat. This is Allen's first full season back following her devastating injury in Portugal, and if she can't pull herself out of the elimination round, her triumphant return could be cut short. Current world #1 Brit Colona joined Allen in the elimination round, along with 2016 world champion and current #5 ranked Alyssa Diaz.

A knock at my hotel room door forced me to pocket my phone and pull myself out of the downward spiral I was no doubt headed towards. I knew I'd done badly that morning - I wasn't sure why I felt the need to reaffirm that by reading articles on Beach Grit about how badly I'd done. Athletes were a special kind of masochists, I guess.

"Coming," I called as the person at my door knocked again. I shrugged on a hoodie and opened the door to see Brit standing there in a rash guard and shorts, with about 50 different colored glow sticks hanging around her neck and head.

"You're not dressed," she frowned at my loungewear.

"Dressed for what?" I cocked an eyebrow at her.

"The night free surf! It's just us girls, no testosterone." When I gave her another puzzled glance, she sighed and stomped her foot on the swirling carpet of the hotel hallway. "Come on Sav, don't be a wet blanket."

I almost laughed at her baby tantrum, and I had to remind myself she was still only 19. Despite that, she'd obviously figured something out about life that I hadn't yet. She was at risk of losing her yellow jersey, but all she seemed to care about was night surfing with glow sticks.

I let out a heavy sigh as Brit shifted on her feet, waiting for a response from me. How do you separate yourself from your success...or lack thereof? How do you develop yourself without your sport or your profession defining who you are? How do you stop comparing yourself to everyone around you?

Some people ask big questions like what caused the big bang or what the origins of life were. I just ask what the fuck is going on in my life.

Atlas had texted me during the day asking me how my heat was, but I couldn't bring myself to answer him yet. Saying it to him made it all too real, and I couldn't go down that precarious road of comparing myself to him again - his success versus mine didn't define anything about our relationship, but in the moment, reminding myself of that was hard.

Brit laughed to fill my unintentional silence as I swam around in my thoughts, and she plucked a neon pink glow stick from her head and handed it to me with a smile. "Seriously, get dressed and let's go or I'll hold you down."

I couldn't pretend I wasn't a little shocked that Brit was standing in the doorway of my hotel room, inviting me out for a free surf. I'd done enough during my return this season to sequester myself from everyone thinking it would insulate me, but I was starting to learn that being on my own wasn't always the best option for me...or most people.

"Okay," I let out a sigh as I nodded, taking the glow stick from her. "Give me two minutes."

Brit grinned and clapped her hands as she hopped up and down. "Wear something neon!"

I quickly pulled out my phone to text Atlas back. Not telling him the truth about my dismal morning did absolutely nothing good for me, so I told him I was in trouble in the elimination round and quickly shut my phone off, not expecting a quick response because of the time difference. He responded immediately.

I let out a relieved sigh, and with it came a far too relieved smile.

Believing in yourself was important, but in those moments when you just couldn't...having someone else in your corner - someone you truly cared about - lifted you in ways you couldn't lift yourself. I had a ladder to touch the stars, but Atlas could have lifted me to the fucking moon.

I let my eyes linger on those little hearts for longer than I needed to before finally shutting my phone off.

I threw on a highlighter green bikini and shrugged my Surf Locos hoodie back on before rejoining Brit in the hallway. She was twirling around two green glow sticks like she was a baton twirler in a parade. She handed me two more in similarly dramatic fashion, and we laughed our way down to the elevators and out of the hotel.

It was a quick stroll from the hotel to the beach, and the sand was cool under our feet. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone for a night surf just for fun, and I gripped my board tighter under my arm as idle chatter from some of the girls already at the beach carried on the night air. When Brit and I came over the top of the dunes to reach the beach, we were greeted by a blue glow that stopped us both in our tracks. 

Strings of blue light ebbed and flowed with the waves, almost like someone was spilling buckets of stars onto the beach. Every time a wave crashed against the shore, it sent an explosion of light into the air. Nature's own fireworks.  

I'd never seen bioluminescence in person. Scientifically, bioluminescence is a light emitted by a living organism through a chemical reaction happening in their bodies. But there were some people who believed seeing it meant something more spiritual. No matter how you viewed it, seeing it in person was a bucket list thing...like getting caught in champagne spray rain at a historical grand prix. My heart swelled in my chest.

"Holy shit," Brit exhaled.

"No kidding," I replied softly.

Some of the other surfers had congregated down by the water's edge, but another taller person walked up to us, and I scowled as I realized who it was. I'd know her even with a pink glow stick around her neck.

"We shouldn't swim in it," Carissa said as she reached us on the dunes. "Most of the organisms that produce this are toxic to the local wildlife population, but some of it can even be toxic to humans, and we just shouldn't risk it."

"That's a shame," I sighed, dropping my board to the sand.

"Crazy how something so beautiful can be so harmful," Brit chimed in. She put a hand to my shoulder. "I'm going to head back. I see this all the time in Costa Rica."

I nodded and gave her a pinched smile. "I'm...I'm actually going to stay out here for a bit."

Some of the other girls followed her up and off the beach, but when I lingered, so did Carissa.

"You know..." she let out a heavy sigh. "Some scientists believe that seeing bioluminescent organisms on the shoreline is a sign that the ocean is unhealthy. Some of the microscopic organisms tend to bloom in areas where there are low levels of oxygen and higher levels of nitrogen and phosphorus," Carissa continued. "And that...it's a sign of global warming."

"Shit, that's depressing," I said as I folded my arms over my chest. "How do you know all of that?"

"Well, I am getting my graduate degree in marine biology so..." Carissa rocked back and forth on her heels.

"Oh." I tried not to pinch my lips into a frown. "Well, that's cool. Good for you."

"You don't have to be sarcastic about it," Carissa groaned, rolling her eyes at me.

"No, no, I wasn't," I shook my head. "I'm sorry I just...I guess I'm a little jealous. I didn't go to college, and I'm starting to regret it."

"You can still go," Carissa said. "You just have to focus on something you're passionate about. It makes the fact that it's school easier."

"I used to think I was only passionate about surfing," I sighed. "But now...I'm not even sure about that anymore."

"See, that's what annoys me about you." Carissa turned on her heel to face me. "You're such a vibe killer."

I scoffed incredulously. "I'm a vibe killer?"

"Yeah," Carissa nodded. "You're always so lame and so down on yourself. It's obvious, it kills everyone's vibe, and it's why you're in the elimination zone. If you're not passionate about surfing anymore, and if it doesn't make you happy, then find something else to do, or you're just going to keep failing."

I thought back to what Jaye had said to me in the elevator about not caring how people referred to him as "overly excited," because at least that meant he was passionate about what he was doing, and when I told him I was excited about surfing, I finally realized what a stone cold lie that was.

I swallowed back a knot of emotion in my throat. "You know...in theory, I know that. But in the moment sometimes, the negativity, the fear...it drowns everything else out. No pun intended."

Carissa actually laughed, and it got me to laugh a little too. 

"Well, here's my unsolicited advice. It sounds simplistic, but just think about other things that make you happy while you surf. Non-surfing things. Eventually, you just start reassociating that happiness with surfing," Carissa shrugged. "Like, think about your dog, or your friends or your family."

Or the guy that was almost ten thousand miles away and still had more faith in me than I did myself.

"Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one," I added with a chuckle. "Thank you for that. You didn't have to do that."

Carissa shrugged again. "I just want you to get yourself out of the elimination zone so I can kick your ass in the final."

I smiled up at her. "Alright, you're on."

i won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives
nobody's putting up a fight
i got my bell, i'm gonna take you to hell

hells bells / ac/dc

so bells beach is a real event that i've taken just a bit of fictional liberties with (such as the time of year it takes place and slightly adjusted formatting) but it's also the first WSL event i watched *live* instead of just skimming highlights and recaps of stuff, so it's a tiny bit sentimental to me. i stayed up until 1 am to watch the opening heats and literally just wanted to root for everyone. i also learned A LOT more about the ins and outs of professional competitive surfing and i know there are things i'd like to go back and fix/adjust in previous chapters to align more with what i know now, but that's what second drafts are for.

so sav might be physically recovered, but anyone who's suffered a similar injury can tell you that the physical recovery is only half of it, and now sav has to grapple with the mental recovery as well. & the carissa redemption arc is the subplot i didn't know i needed until now.

obviously you should be listening to hells bells by ac/dc during the surfing scenes.